'Captain Eo' Could Lead To Stars' War

July 27, 1985|By Jay Boyar of the Sentinel Staff

You'd think that either George Lucas or Francis Ford Coppola would be able to make a 12-minute movie without any help from the other guy. After all, Lucas, 41, is the celebrated director of such blockbusters as Star Wars and American Graffiti. And Coppola, 46, is the man who has made such films as Apocalypse Now, The Cotton Club and both Godfather movies.

But apparently Michael Jackson, 27, is too big a star for a single filmmaker to handle -- even if it's just for 10 minutes. On Tuesday, Walt Disney Pictures officials announced that Lucas will be the executive producer and Coppola the director of Captain Eo, a musical space fantasy starring Jackson. The 3-D movie, reportedly budgeted at $10 million, will be shown next year at both Walt Disney World and Disneyland.

On Friday, unit publicist Patrick O'Neill announced that the filming, which began July 15, is scheduled to be finished in about a week. He said that in addition to Michael Jackson, Captain Eo also will feature ''a lot of different Star Wars-type characters'' and Anjelica Huston of Prizzi's Honor.

''There is a story line to it. It's not a music video,'' said O'Neill, who would not offer details of the script.

The Lucas-Coppola collaboration doesn't seem quite so strange once you realize that this is not the first time the filmmakers have worked together. Lucas' introduction to big-time moviemaking was observing Coppola as he directed Finian's Rainbow (1968). And on The Rain People (1969), Coppola's next film, Lucas served in several technical capacities. During that production, Lucas also made a half-hour documentary called Filmmaker about the making of The Rain People.

Perhaps only a true film buff would remember that Coppola functioned as a sort of executive producer on THX-1138 (1971), the first feature film that Lucas directed. And he was the producer of Lucas' second feature, American Graffiti (1973). Even many buffs wouldn't know that Lucas worked on Coppola's The Godfather (1972), and that Apocalypse Now (1979), which Coppola directed, was originally Lucas' idea.

With this long history of cooperation, everything ought to go very smoothly on Captain Eo, right? Maybe.

''All directors have egos and are insecure,'' Lucas has been quoted as saying. ''But of all the people I know, Francis has the biggest ego.''

Sure that title isn't Captain Ego?

Second bananas: What do The Legend of Billie Jean, Return to Oz and Red Sonya have in common? Each has a female as its central character. In fact, of all the major movies released so far this summer, these three are the only ones that do.

Of course, many of this summer's movies feature women in important secondary roles: National Lampoon's European Vacation has Beverly D'Angelo, A View to a Kill has Grace Jones and Tanya Roberts, and Perfect has Jamie Lee Curtis, to take three examples. Even so, the small number of summer films focusing on women characters is distressing.

What's ahead for the rest of the summer? Set to open next week is Weird Science, a movie about two boys who build a computer-generated woman. And The Bride will premiere a couple of weeks later; it's about a scientist who builds a mechanical woman. In feminist terms, these movies don't appear to be steps in the right direction. If the advance word is any indication, the female characters in them will -- quite literally -- be objects.